And, to save you the trouble of trying to remember it and look it up, here's David Carr's 2008 NYT Magazine telling the story of his crackhead past.

Every addict is formed in the crucible of the memory of that first hit. Even as the available endorphins attenuate, the memory is right there. By 1985, I tried freebasing coke and its more prosaic sibling, crack.

“Crackhead” is an embarrassing line item to have on a résumé. If meth tweakers had not come along and made a grab for the crown — meth makes you crazy and toothless — crackheads would be at the bottom of the junkie org chart. In the beginning, smokable cocaine fills you with childlike wonder, a feeling that the carnival had come to town and chosen your cranium as the venue for its next show. There is only one thing that appeals after a hit of crack, and it is not a brisk walk around the block to clear one’s head. Most people who sample it get a sense of its lurid ambush and walk away.

Many years later, my pal Donald sat in a cabin in Newport, Minn., staring into a video camera I had brought and recalling the crackhead version of me.

Have a little pity on the poor man, even as he's disparaging other people's heads. Remember he has disparaged his own head.

Low-sloping foreheads? So, the residents of Flyover Country are Gooks?

What an exotic place, this Flyover Country! The natives:

o Marry the opposite sexo Have too many childreno Shop at Walmarto Drive gas guzzling SUVso Salute the flago Live in suburbia and small townso Vote Republican

What else?

What's needed is a new policy, sort of like LBJ's Search and Destroy missions, to rid us of this evil Gook menace.

We had to destroy the village to save it!

Maybe The New York Times can send some reporters into Deepest Darkest Iowa to explain the strange habits of the natives. National Geographic could document the local girls dancing topless in bars on the edge of small towns.

The comment was shocking enough, but the response from the panel was worse. It didn't strike any of them, even for a moment, that it was an inappropriate thing to say and worthy of chastisement. Not even a mild rebuke, just encouragement that they were on HBO and that such comments were okay there. It wasn't even a funny comment: just typical leftist classism. Why is it, exactly, that leftists supposedly dedicated to eliminating class distinctions so quickly fall into the old patterns of the Soviet nomenklatura? Perhaps it's an essential element of leftist ideology.

o Marry the opposite sexo Have too many childreno Shop at Walmarto Drive gas guzzling SUVso Salute the flago Live in suburbia and small townso Vote Republican

What else?

o Join the Militaryo Go to churcho like the neighborso know that meat comes from animals, not from the butchero What social life there is revolves around the Friday night HS football game, the dance at the Armory, bingo at the VFD, and a beer at the VFW/Elks/Moose Lodge bar

Columnist Biography: David Carr:"David Carr writes a column for the Monday Business section of the New York Times that focuses on media issues including print, digital, film, radio and television. He also works as a general assignment reporter in the Culture section of The New York Times covering all aspects of popular culture.

Carr began working at the Times in 2002 covering the magazine publishing industry for the Business section. Prior to arriving at the Times, Carr was a contributing writer for The Atlantic Monthly and New York Magazine, writing articles that ranged from homeland security issues to the movie industry. In 2000, he was the media writer for Inside.com, a web news site focusing on the business of entertainment and publishing.

Prior to arriving in New York, Carr served as editor of the Washington City Paper, an alternative weekly in Washington D.C. for five years. During that time, he wrote a column, “Paper Trail,” which focused on media issues in the nation’s capital.

From 1993 to 1995, Carr was editor of the Twin Cities Reader, a Minneapolis-based alternative weekly, and wrote a media column there as well.

Carr lives in Montclair, New Jersey and is married to Jill Rooney Carr. They have three children."

When I first heard about this I had a reaction similar to most of the others here. Then I remembered that I've heard California referred to as the "land of nuts and fruits" or something similar, so why should midwesterners be off limits?

I thought the irony was that the guy, a New York Times columnist, intended to denigrate the intelligence level of midwesterners but in expressing himself he was barely coherent. It was one level above gibberish. Yet he and his NYT colleagues are always quick to jump on Sarah Palin if she trips up when speaking off the cuff.

Drill Sgt: Your additions were absolutely correct until you came to the "what social life there is...." part. Maybe that describes YOUR social life, but it certainly doesn't mine and never has, although I've lived in IL, FL, NC and MS.

o Join the Militaryo Go to churcho like the neighborso know that meat comes from animals, not from the butchero What social life there is revolves around the Friday night HS football game, the dance at the Armory, bingo at the VFD, and a beer at the VFW/Elks/Moose Lodge bar

* Have a backhoe in the backyard, or know a neighbor who does, so they can clear a way up a 15 foot riverbank, so the local volunteer firemen who are keeping a horse who fell into the cold river from drowning can winch it out without getting themselves or the animal killed.* Grow their own veggies not because it's cool, because it's life. * Share the same.* Clear roads after storms because the DOT and power company are busy.* Work in industries that make the things that make life happen in New Jersey.

Some nice people on the coasts. Many pompous jerks.

But if my life depended on it I'd pick the Slopeys over the talking smirking heads any day.

MaggotAtBroad&Wall said...Then I remembered that I've heard California referred to as the "land of nuts and fruits" or something similar, so why should midwesterners be off limits?

as somebody born in rural California who has raised fruits and nuts, we don't find that saying incorrect. besides, if you grew up there you read about the theory of the Frontier, by Frederick Jackson Turner and know there is some truth to the nuts part.

@Marta said...I withdraw the "what little" part, but stand by the statement that social life revolves around some typical small town instituations.

city folks don't understand the meaning of a National Guard Armory, nor if you haven't lived in TX or OK, do you really understand Friday night football, unless perhaps you live in Green Bay...

@MaggotAtBroad Then I remembered that I've heard California referred to as the "land of nuts and fruits" or something similar, so why should midwesterners be off limits? For one thing, in California they grow “fruits and nuts”. To describe California as the land of fruits and nuts references their agriculture and makes a pun since fruits and nuts are descriptions of people who are not acting in a sane like manner.

To describe a land of people with low-sloping foreheads tries to equate the people to various genetic diseases where mental retardation and physical characteristics go together. There’s no humor, no pun.

< rant > The essence of his position is that anyone voting Republican is subhuman. It's even worse when, as I do, the cretins farm for a living, or reside anywhere you actually have to drive in order to move around.

This particular "slope" of a farmer is completely fluent in three languages, quite comfortable in three more, and able to be polite in several others. How about you Mr. Carr?

I am part of a family which has brought forth officers for the defense of this nation in every generation since 1701. How about you Mr. Carr?

One of my closest neighbors (also a farmer) has two Ph.Ds. Another worked for many years as an engineer. He could even calculate the median slope of our foreheads out here.

I can grow truckloads of vegetables from a few handfuls of seed, or design and build a house from scratch. Or, for that matter work as an analytical chemist should I choose, or explore for valuable minerals. Mr. Carr wouldn't even know a monazite if it came up and bit him in the arse.

I can assure you, the chief political goal out here in the heartland is simply to be left alone. In order to achieve it, however, we must find ways of restricting the intellectual left's political power and influence to something like the 15% of society they actually represent.

And the biggest difference of all? Mr. Carr could show up at my door next week and I'd be very polite to him, feed him well, show him around, and if he got into a serious problem ... do my utmost to help him out of it.

Any of my neighbors would do the same, but I doubt it would be reciprocated should circumstances be reversed.

I just want you all to know that some of us Ivy-grad Easterners are as appalled at Carr as you Midwesterners are. It is not a general attitude here, it is strictly limited to the insecure, who need to look down on someone to feel better about themselves.

I wonder who all of those people that Carr left behind in the Twin Cities feel about his comment.

Ethnic group rising up against ethnic group in violent mobs is a world trend and growing stronger since the Rawandans in 1994. Liberal Metrosexuals are now projecting an ethnic group status onto middle American conservatives which is their way to justify the violence that is coming.

Show me your diplomas. I'll show you mine. Show me your transcripts. I'll show you mine. Show me your charitable recognitions. I'll show you mine.

Bring your wife. I'll bring min, of course - its her party. Show me your marriage certificate. I'll show you mine. Bring your children. I'll bring mine. Show me their credentials. I'll show you mine. Ask yours to Show me their accomplishments. I'll ask ours to show you theirs.

Show me how you act like ladies and gentlemen, because my wife will expect it.

I don't think I'd ever describe crack as more prosaic than freebasing. You might not catch on fire as often while smoking crack, but it's surely not dull. Maybe freebasing's evil twin, or freebasing's ugly sister. Even then, she may be ugly, but she sure can dance.

"If meth tweakers had not come along and made a grab for the crown — meth makes you crazy and toothless — crackheads would be at the bottom of the junkie org chart."

But crack doesn't?

I was driving a female friend home immediately after a bad snow/ice storm in KC. I was probably doing less than five miles an hour down Main St, about 38th. Maybe 10 at night.

I shit you not, there was a tapping on my driver's window (I was focused like all hell on steering). Scared the shit out of me. I looked up and it was a crack whore, thinking she was all that in her tube top and short skirt barely clinging to her emaciated frame. "Want a date?"

If it ever came down to it, the Coasties would be what we call "food" for Flyover Country folks. In the ultimate apocalypse--which, by the way, would be the fault of the Coastal Elites--they'd be the well-marbled protein we'd need to survive until the country could be rebuilt. I imagine the following scenario on the post-apocalyptic road somewhere: COASTIE: "And what do you do?"LOW SLOPER: "Some blacksmithing, carpentry and digging. What do you do?"COASTIE: "I'm a consultant on European compensation structures and how they affect global markets for Societe Generale based in Manhattan"LOW SLOPER: "oh, meat."

No Ann. Listening to this asshole belittle other people as genetic inferiors is bad enough but coming from an arrogant ex-crackhead who feels comfortable enough say this stuff because he writes for the NYT and lives in Jersey is a step to far for me. Next time you listen to the NYT Ann remember these are guys that write the stories. Word.

I'm confused. What does this guy--and the rest of them on that show--associate with forehead-slope?

I know it can't be IQ, because everybody knows there's no such thing. The only reliable indicator of stupidity (which exists, even though IQ does not measure it) I'm aware of is Republicanism, but I don't see what head-shape has to do with that.

Maher thinks he is edgy by going after conservatives. Some political incorrectness. He would be politically incorrect if he were to take some real chances and, sit down and hold on, if he were to actually say something negative about Obama, Biden, Holder, Pelosi, et al.

Every time that I even think about getting HBO, I find myself in a hotel, scanning the channels, and finding him clogging up what should be a movie on that channel.

Is HBO hurting so badly that it needs to put bad political comedy on, instead of movies? Maher hasn't been funny for a long time, except in very insulated communities on either coast.

For me, it is evidence of fairly bad marketing. Why offend a majority of the market for a fairly small percentage of it that already probably has more channels than it can possibly watch?

Every time that I even think about getting HBO, I find myself in a hotel, scanning the channels, and finding him clogging up what should be a movie on that channel.

You must have missed the whole "Game Of Thrones" thing. While I'm not a big fan, in any way, of "True Blood", but "Treme" is an excellent show. "Band Of Brothers" and "The Pacific" are likewise incredibly good TV. I don't sit down to watch many shows, but HBO's series are the exception.

Well, hate to go against the crowd here, but while crackheads are low, I will agree with whomever said that tweakers are lower.

It is really, really, scary stuff. And, with crack, it is the illegality that makes it far worse. Back in the day (i.e. when my hair was dark and much much longer), much of the speed out there was still pharmaceutical. Speed freaks would get wasted, etc., but it wasn't much worse than those who were doing psychedelics. And, indeed, by the 1970s, most of the psychedelics on the street seemed to be cut with speed.

Something somewhat similar happened with crack. Back in that day, people were still getting pharmaceutical cocaine. The cost seemed to keep down the use, until I think, the boomers started making money, and then it exploded and started ruining lives. So, the good stuff was made harder to get, and the cheap stuff filled the gap. And, yes, crack seems much worse than the coke it is made from.

I am too much of a libertarian to want to spend many billions each year combating people trying to destroy their lives with these drugs, along with the serious adverse effects this war has had on our civil liberties.

Let me suggest though that the distinction here between crack and meth seems a bit racial. Though there is quite a bit of overlap, the primary meth community seems to be poorer white, while the blacks seem to prefer crack. This is just a feel, based on my (limited) experiences.

While meth may be a more rural drug, my experience with those destroyed by it have all been decidedly urban. I talked to a cop in N. central Phoenix some decade ago, and he told me that a large majority of the non-violent crime in his precinct was being done by the tweakers. And, it is still going on there - I know people in that area who are right now destroying their lives, and that of their families (including kids), through using meth. I have lost over the last decade two expensive engagement rings, along with a very nice shotgun to meth.

But getting back to political correctness - could those on Maher's show just possibly be putting tweakers down below crack heads because of the racial element there even more than the rural/urban difference?

A certain kind of person (and a certain kind of "comedian") requires a group of putatively inferior people to make fun of, as their essential stock in trade. Maocking that group is actually the only way they define themselves---by whom they are not, rather than whom they are themselves. Self-styled sophisticates used to make these sorts of sneering, knowing remarks about blacks, Hispanics, "Polacks," and all kinds of other groups. Unfashionable white people are the only remaining group at whome these sports of remarks can be acceptably directed nowadays. Maher and his ilk should be grateful for all those unfashionable whites. Without them they would have no pne tp p[roject their own inadequacies on. They might be forced to confront their own empty souls.

Uhh,Mike? You might want to drop Illinois from the competition. We're damm near as broke as Mexifornia, and our present hapless governor seems intent on sending Texas the few jobs we have remaining here.

I find Maher's initial comments no less offensive than Carr's. Ironic that Maher was particularly offended by Christie's comments because both he & Christie are from NJ, citing his NJ public school education & holding it up as superior to AL & KS, etc. Wonder if he's offended by his fellow natives that appear on shows such as Real Housewives of NJ & Jersey Shore? I long since quit watching Maher, his smugness is nauseating, but I must say, he does have a really high forehead!

Turds like this guy, who make these comments, spur me to propose the following to liberals: let's debate, then box. I will win both, and you're NOT elite. You're less of a man that I am in intellect and brawn. David Carr, what a pu**y.

Back in the 1960s, liberalism was about not judging books by their covers. Today's "liberals" are apparently about checking out folks' skulls to weed out the inferior genes that vote Republican or something. Today's liberalism sounds more and more like a certain national socialist totalitarian bunch I once heard about.

The only thing that leftists can do is call us names and describe us in inaccurate and unflattering terms. They have nothing else.

They are devoid of productive ideas, or of even the the careful contemplation from which such ideas are born.

The older I get, and at 38 I'm no spring chicken, the more childish and genuinely delusional they seem to me. Once upon a time I assumed, naively, that somewhere underneath all the nonsense they had a point.

I don't believe that anymore. Leftists suffer from a fundamental disconnect with reality that is only possible in a society that is successful enough to protect fools from their own folly. Without sure and certain negative consequences for being wrong, some people make a pastime of it.

Imagine how many leftists there would be without easy access to food, shelter, and the creature comforts and leisure activities that Americans enjoy. If these guys had to make their notions work where the rubber meets the road, they'd either quickly change their tune or find themselves as buzzard food.

Does anyone else remember the hysteria on the left and in the media (yes, I know that is redundant) when the Atlanta Braves' John Rocker had disparaging things to say about New Yorkers? It sure seems that their indignation is rather selective.

I watched this guy's comment, and, knowing that he himself came from the mid-west I couldn't really tell whether he was making a sincere (stupid gratuitously insulting and absurd) comment, or was putting on his fellow panelists. Their tittering and gleeful responses indeed made them all look like utter shits, but was he really pissing on his own origins?

Well, I'm too old for fistfights but I still manage to notice how well the country has been doing since the '06 elections when the Dems took Congress. Parddon the bad words but it looks like the left, who claim to be so smart, could fuck up an anvil with a feather duster.

I keep hoping that the blacks and the poor, as well as the latinos will notice that the left, and the Democrats (but I repeat myself) have been at war with them for years, all the time claiming to love them. When that happens Bill Maher and David Carr, as well as the rest of that ilk, will be hunted down and slaughtered.

You haven't lived until you've seen a tweaker in action. It is a really, really destructive drug. The people are nervous, their teeth are rotten. The methamphetamine makes them really, really sexually active. They'd sleep with a snake if it had an opening. Out in Southern California it seems to be a lower class white person's drug--they didn't have the money to do all that Baby Boomer pharmaceutical grade cocaine like the high foreheaded moron on the New York Times.

Montclair, NJ is the center of the liberal movement in New Jersey. The place has had itself declared a Sancturary Center for illegals - the whole city!! It has to be one of the yuppiest places I have ever been - and I lived there for 5 years (and hated it all 5 years). Beautiful homes, a few very nice people, some celebs, and the rest of the place is almost a Commie Central. Their property taxes are unbelievable. My landlord had a Victorian home that was at the time valued at 275K. His property taxes were $14K/year - and that was in the early to mid-1990's and the property consisted of 3 ft on one side of the house, 20 ft on the other side of the house, 50 ft behind the house and 10 feet in front of the house.